Thoughts on Life, Love, Politics, Hypocrisy and Coming Out in Mid-Life

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Ageism in the LGBT Community

At the recent Equality Virginia Commonwealth Dinner, there were a good number of younger members of the LGBT community. As an honoree, I found them to be universally respectful and pleasant. Since the event tends to draw those of a more activist bent, I suspect many were simply more inclined to be respectful of older activists. The same cannot be said for young gays in clubs and some social settings. Indeed, older members of the community are often greeted with nastiness and almost a form of condescension aimed at those of us no longer in our 20's or early 30's - young and beautiful, if you will. By their standards, when I came out and first engaged with the LGBT community shortly after my 50th birthday, I was already ready for the grave and certainly not an object for romantic interest. Since then, I feel I have made contributions to the LGBT community and have tried to make a different. Not to sound peevish, many of the young club boys cannot say the same. Some even seem oblivious to the threats facing our community and the need for activism and more than shallowness. Attitude magazine looks at a new movie "Prime Time" that looks at the vibrancy of gays of a certain age who likely would never get a second glance from many of today's gay youth. Here are excerpts:

Most of my film works up till now have been set among groups
of older people, primarily older men – railway enthusiasts, model car racers,
hobbyists seeking friendships and affinities in local clubs or like-minded
communities, or, in the case of one film, retired people out taking
early-morning exercise. I am drawn to the unseen rituals that characterise
these various social interactions, and the unspoken codes and signs that bind
individuals to these groups. But I have always also been struck by the energy
and vitality and self-confidence of the people I have met, and who I have
featured in my films. While I like to step back, with my camera, and observe
the quirks of human behaviour, I also want to highlight and celebrate that
energy and vitality and self-confidence – especially at a time when those
qualities are increasingly associated with (and commodified in) a cult of youth.

If
this exaggerated focus on youth is an inescapable part of mainstream culture,
it is, even more, the case perhaps on the gay scene. For a couple of years now,
I have been following and befriending an American network of older gay men,
known as ‘Prime Timers’. It’s a largely Stateside phenomenon to date, in which
members of the community get together on a regular basis to go on group
excursions together. One of these, a Caribbean cruise, is the subject of my
latest film, ‘Prime Time’.

While making the film, once again I found myself in the company of people
who had time on their hands, but who also, in their latter years, clearly
exhibited a real zest for life. As a younger gay man, alert to the pressures
exerted by a physical ideal that people are meant to find desirable or aspire
to possess, I wanted to show a different aspect by portraying the marks and
contours of older male bodies in a sensual, affirmative way. I was in the
presence of people who were totally comfortable in their own skin, and I wanted
to convey that sense of self-possession and ease, and its attractiveness to me.

The film got me thinking more generally about the question of
how and when we can properly say we are in the prime of our lives. You can be
young and fit, buff and gym-toned, absolutely at your physical peak, but do
your best years still lie in front of you, when your physical powers may be
starting to diminish, but the wider experience you have accumulated more than
compensates? I reflected on this through the mirror of the cruise ship itself:
a little utopia floating on the ocean, in which time seems to both fill out,
and stand still.

Although ‘Prime Time’ can be summed up in a snappy one-liner
– ‘it’s a film about cruising on a cruise ship.’ – it’s also my attempt to
grapple with something more universal, even existential: how we both measure
and deny the passing of time.

Let me say it first. Yes, I confess that I typically post "male beauty" photos of young guys. There are several reasons, the first being that it is very hard to find quality sexy, racy photos of mature/older guys. For finding photos, the choices tend to be x-rated "daddy" porn sites that are generally too risque for Blogger if one wants to remain a non-mature website (and most of the men are beefy, football player types - a body type that frankly does nothing for me) or hair style/color product models. Of course, this scarcity of older male models in and of itself underscores the larger problem of America's cult of youth.

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I can't believe that this is any different in the heterosexual community. Older people are not going to be any more attractive to young single heterosexuals than we older gay people are to young club-goers. Maturity is partially a process of accepting the inevitable in life.

Still, I was 42 when I met my husband. And he was 28. Sometimes you get lucky. That was 27 years ago. You may have to kiss a number of frogs, but occasionally they will transform.

And please don't tie yourself in knots trying to find the handsome old men in the glossies. Your followers here have fairly well-defined tastes, an older men are probably not on their palate.

Hi, Michael. I think that I am somewhat older than you, being a child of the 60's. When I finally decided to recognize who I was, which was in the 70's, I was almost on the cusp of being "Oh Mary, please..." And depending on where I was, it was indeed "Oh Mary, please ...."

In candor, I have no objection whatsoever to your continued postings of young attractive guys, and I have to confess that Richard Dean Anderson at 35 was hotter than Richard Dean Anderson is at 65 (although if we were ever to have met once, let alone twice, he would likely say the same about me, and then some).

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Out gay attorney in a committed relationship; formerly married and father of three wonderful children; sometime activist and political/news junkie; survived coming out in mid-life and hope to share my experiences and reflections with others.
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